"I'll bet shape shifters are fun in bed," she says. We're watching some apes roaming a manmade habitat. One, a large male, engaged in a half-hearted charge.

"That's plain weird, Beth. Is there something I should know?" I ask.

"It just occurred to me, it might be exciting. You'd never know who was going to show up."

"I was the tail end of a pantomime horse in grammar school," I tell her. "That count?"

She snaps off a piece of pink popcorn and puts it between her lips, smiles. I wonder if things are getting old for her. Stale as that popcorn. If I need to beat my chest more. Maybe roar a little. I think how comfortable routines can be. How insidious. I consider asking her what new shape she might prefer. Various possibilities flitting about in my brain like those birds in the aviary across from us. But think better of it, and we move on. Watch a hippo lumber up to a small pool and transform momentarily; balletic in the water. Close as it gets sometimes.